


the least bad option

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Forced to Watch Other Character Getting Gang Raped, F/M, Victim Soulbonds with Rapist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 16:00:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11444250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Is still pretty damn bad.





	the least bad option

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mossy_Moondark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mossy_Moondark/gifts).



Tile mosaics spread underneath the soldier's boots, red and yellow and white. Fish and birds and lake monsters in the center, dissolving into geometry on the periphery, until the patterns formed square borders that lined the space exactly, precisely. It was clean in here, deep in the palace, and almost quiet. Almost normal, but for the soldier, standing aberrant in the center of a fish, mud flaking off his boots.

They had come through the garden, to still have mud on them. And of course it was a _they_ , one soldier didn't exist any more than _one_ locust or _one_ rat. The palace had moved from surrounded to infested in the early hours of the morning. The noise had stopped hours ago. Now the suns were high and this young murderer stood squinting around at furniture worth more than his life.

"Come with me," the soldier said.

"Why?" Mara said, foolishly, stupidly, as if--as if there was still some other future for her, as if her life hadn't been herded into a corner weeks and weeks ago.

As if anyone in the world didn't know the fate of women in wartime.

He said none of these things. He rolled his eyes at her. He stood flat-footed in her rooms, unflinching, unsquirming, like he had every right to be here. He didn't speak, just tapped the gun slung over his shoulder meaningfully.

"And if--" Bravery did not come naturally. Stupid bravado would have to do. "--I choose to die here, where I belong?"

His eyes went a bit wide at that. Now he seemed uncomfortable, where the gold leaf and the blood drying under his ear and down the side of his neck had not affected him.

"No," he said. "I have orders."

"I don't care."

"I _will_ drag you," he said. "Come on. Have some dignity."

He sounded like a boy trying to get out of elocution lessons.

"Why? Am I going to a _dignified_ fate?"

The soldier sighed. He squatted down across from her, where she sat on her low couch and clutched a shawl with frozen fingers. Couldn't they have been foreign invaders, did they have to be insurgents, did this boy have to look like he could have been her nephew, when he opened his mouth and said:

"Right now, you're going to the General," he said. "But if I have to drag you--it's a long walk--I might just stop at the kennels, instead."

The silence in the room stretched. Outside it, there was noise, noises that she'd soon be forced to match actions to.

In the end, she walked.

Through the next room, where soldiers tried on her jewelry and laughed, high and manic, and the next, where faces had been smashed off statues, down a hallway eerily empty, past a courtyard where--there was a line of men, in loyalist uniforms, hands bound, unarmed, they were being lined up--

The soldier assigned to her moved her along with the barrel of his rifle between her shoulder blades. After that she tried not to see things. The General had taken her husband's throne room, it became clear from the path, and she didn't need to look up from the ground to find her way there.

Too soon, warm yellow tiles turned red under her feet. Too soon, the close and comforting walls dropped away, and a noise rose up around her that made her want to scream, to retch, to claw off her own ears.

It was a peculiarity of the room that, from the dais holding the throne, voices were clear and crisp and easily understood; from anywhere else, the echoes were vicious and tangling. Her maid was being raped in the middle of the room. The sound seemed to come from everywhere. Every wet slap, every punctuating grunt from the still-dressed soldier, every choked off whine of pain coming from Adrinna's mouth.

Mara couldn't lift her eyes from it. Her throne had been dragged off the dais and flipped on its side. Adrinna was bent over the seat, chest pressed against the arm of the chair. Her head had dropped, but the soldier behind her saw Mara standing there reached forward and grabbed her hair. He jerked her head up.

Adrinna's nose was misshapen, her chin and one cheek smeared in red. There was a split in one eyebrow leaking blood and gluing her eye shut, but there was no doubt she saw Mara; her pained moans stopped. Until the soldier violating her leaned forward and reached under her chest. Mara couldn't see what he did to her breast but she _screamed_.

The soldier who had fetched Mara grabbed her by the arm before she could get more than a step forward.

"Stop this--stop this at _once_ , I--"

"Your reign is ended," clear, and carrying, and Mara finally raised her eyes to the dais.

The General. If he had a name, no one knew it. He sat in her husband's throne, elbow on the armrest, head resting on his fist. His legs were kicked out long in front of him, eyes on Adrinna's torment, face mild, unaffected.

"You give no orders here," he said, and looked up at her, finally.

The soldier's hand was digging into her arm. She gave a futile jerk and froze when the warm metal barrel of his gun came to nestle under the hinge of her jaw.

The soldier raping Adrinna gave a deep, satisfied groan that filled the room, that seemed to settle on Mara's skin like a layer of pond scum. He gave a few more thrusts, slower, lazier, and pulled out, and Mara noticed, then, that there was a line of soldiers stretching away from her ruined throne. As the first soldier tucked his blood-slicked cock away, another one was setting his rifle down and reaching for the front of his pants.

The General smiled.

"She did nothing," Mara said. "She didn't--she's no loyalist, she's a _hairdresser,_ she--"

"She is _your_ hairdresser," the General said. "Lieutenant. Bring her Majesty to me."

Mara would have thought she couldn't walk any more than she could fly. Mara was discovering the depths of human resilience brought about by the barrel of a gun. They crossed the room, Mara and the soldier, her feet dragging and skipping on the smooth floor.

She passed close enough to Adrinna she could have touched her. Adrinna's eyes were tightly closed. A mercy.

Finally she stood in front of the General. His uniform wasn't much different from his soldiers', but for the flock of awards and decorations along his left sleeve. There was no mistaking him for aught but the axle turning this grinding wheel, though.

He wasn't looking at her like dessert, as he'd looked at Adrinna, or like an effigy for the fire, or any way she really expected. He looked at her like a map he couldn't find North on. She tried to look at him like nothing at all.

He shifted on the throne, extended an arm towards her. 

"Here," he said. "Sit with me, your Majesty."

Any reaction would be reward to him. Still, she couldn't force herself to even the posture of ease. She let herself be pulled onto his lap, into the curve of his arm, and her spine was a plank of wood, her hands dead metal.

Another soldier finished. They were boys, after all. As he stepped away Mara saw, between her legs, how red and raw she had become, before it was obscured again. Her throat closed like a fist. Bile, or tears, or maybe both. None of which were useful right now.

"You didn't come here for this," she said.

"No," he said. He put his chin on her shoulder. Her back was to his chest, his body curving around her like a carapace, or some ancient shield. "I consider it sauce to the meal."

Mara said, "Soon you will choke."

Her face had started turning away. He grabbed her chin and turned her back. "Mind the show," he said. "This display is for you, your Majesty."

Adrinna's head was hanging. She wasn't reacting much anymore, beyond the occasional convulsive twitch. The soldiers were jeering at the one raping her, blaming his inadequate cock.

"I prefer acrobats," she said.

"I imagine she'll bend well enough," the General said.

"Why are you wasting your time with this?" Mara demanded. "This isn't conquering, this isn't _ruling,_ this isn't one of your damned reforms--"

His arm lifted from her waist--she tensed--his hand settled over her mouth.

"This is a visual aide," he said. "I'm going to make you an offer."

He dropped his hand. _No_ rushed up and filled her mouth, her throat, but she didn't let it past her teeth.

"Go on," she managed.

"You can take her place," the General said. The hand that had been over her mouth slid to her thigh, spread fingers wide. "Or you can bond with me."

Horror soaked into her like blood into the soil. Even her husband, her gentle, tormented husband, had not demanded a bond. Her love, her fealty, her body, but not her mind, her very essence, her soul. And now this--hell-sent creature, monster grown in the dark between worlds, wanted to pour his sewage into her very cells. 

She had known a bonded woman. They'd been plainly married, at first, but eventually that hadn't been enough for the nightmare she lived with, and they'd taken the wine and swallowed the flower and spoken the ancient, alien words. The new-bonded woman seldom spoke in public, after that, and Mara could remember--she remembered seeing the man put his hand on the back of her neck, and seeing her cringe, curl, whole body curving inward like burning paper, head dropping, hands coming up, wringing.

One of the soldiers was seeing how many fingers he could fit into Adrinna.

But hadn't he been bonded to her, too? Hadn't his voice lowered, when he spoke in council? 

"Why?" Mara said, and then answered herself. "Legitimacy. My blood."

Four fingers, easily. The thumb was presenting an obstacle. A bond was more than marriage, more than oaths or honor. His rule would be sanctified under her skirts. Faced with attacking her bondmate, the loyalist cause would fracture and devour itself.

"Your blood," he agreed. His stubble-rough cheek brushed her jaw. "I will have it one way or another."

There wasn't a _choice_ , she hadn't had a choice since the walls were breached. Mara knew what she needed to do. The facts fit themselves together neatly as spoons in a drawer. 

It would be best to melt against him, as in relief. It would be best. She could not.

"Give me Adrinna back," Mara said. "As--as your flowergift. Give me Adrinna."

"When she's finished." 

"Then I want her tended. By a medic, not one of your men."

"You are tediously softhearted," he said, but did not sound displeased. Probably he thought he would roll over her like a wave, with her tedious concern. 

"By a medic," she said again.

"Fine, fine," the General said. "I am generous. Let it never be said I am not gracious in victory."

Now she made herself relax into him, brooking no mutiny from every inch of flesh that screamed for release.

How many Adrinnas had stopped screaming already tonight? How many more before the week was over? The soldier's hand was fully inside her.

"Take me to bed, General," Mara said.

His arms settled around her waist. "When she's finished," he said again.

 

*

 

The bedchamber had been redone in haste. Mara did not think about what might have dirtied sheets and rugs. She chose to be glad her husband's bed, where he had rested in her arms, where he had spread her knees and told her hoarsely she was a feast and an honor, had been outfitted in clashing patterns and a livid green he would have hated. Best to have the room empty of objects that could tear her calm open.

A table that by rights should hold a vase of buttonlily had been dragged to the foot of the bed. One goblet of wine; two flowers from a single stem, golden, with long blue throats. In dimmer light they'd fluoresce. In her chest, away from even reflected light of Marasheen and Marasheven, they would die, and in dying, release their poison.

The General--and she'd know his name, soon, what a horrible thought, it would live next hers under her breastbone--the General had gone off to do something terrible and time sensitive. She was alone, for a moment, with the flowers. A cruelty, to break the momentum, let her breathe, think.

But a short cruelty, this time. He arrived before her nerve shattered completely. Just came in the door and shucked his jacket off on a chair. Mara turned from the table and looked at him.

He was around the same age as her, considered as flesh, and not a cataclysm. Dark hair and a nice jaw. Shoulders she would have admired, some other world. The sort of perfect black eyes girls longed for. Paler than she cared for--there was faint redness across his nose. He favored one leg slightly, but otherwise did not have the decency to look tired. 

He took a step toward her.

Mara grabbed the cup. He stopped. Her mouth twisted.

"I keep my word," she said, and before he could start talking again she raised it to her mouth and gulped half of it, messy, quick. 

Sweet, and thick. It felt like it coated her teeth and throat on the way down. A few drops slid from the corner of her mouth, and she raised a hand to wipe it away.

And lowered it. The wine, dark, sweet, slipped down her chin, her neck, to rest on the skin exposed by her shawl. He was watching it.

Here, then, was where the knife met the meat. Mara let her shawl drop. She raised an arm. If it shook, what of it?

He came forward fast. His fingers twined in her hair, pulling her head back, and his own head was dipping down, putting his mouth on the trail of wine. He followed it from the soft upper swell of her breast to the corner of her mouth. Hot, warm, wet. Only a man. Only a man.

"Drink," she said, when his mouth had been near hers for too long.

"Your Majesty," he said, irony heavy in his voice. He didn't step back, just pulled the goblet from her clutching hand and took his own dose. She watched his throat move. After the flower went down it, she could never draw steel across it. She wouldn't be _able_. 

Too much to think about. Mara slapped the goblet out of his hand, and he let her. She seized his black undershirt in both hands and tugged upward.

"I had no idea you were such a romantic," the General said, when it was off. "The propaganda reels did you no justice."

"You aren't funny," she said. 

"You'll change your mind," he said. He plucked at a strap in the complicated arrangement of beaded and embroidered scaffolding that cradled her chest. "This is ridiculous. Remove it."

Mara wrapped a finger around an embroidered sun and pulled, and the top of her dress sagged. A second tug to the sun on her other shoulder dismantled it, and her chest was bare.

The General lifted a hand and ran his murderer's fingers across the side of her breast, tracing a line the tight fabric had left. He followed it to the soft peak of her breast, traced a circle around her nipple. The pads of his fingers were rough and strange on the red and tender marks. Mara had thought one man's hands on her must feel like another. Her husband's had been softer, and found no interest in these ordinary artifacts of the royal regalia.

Without the shoulder straps, the skirt was loosening around her hips, drifting down. Trying to ignore his hands raising her nipples to hardness, she shifted her feet, and only made it worse. Now the blue-green silk hung light and precarious from the widest part of her hips, and he still had his boots on.

She reached for the front of his pants. She could not give herself time to think. He left off his exploration and pushed her hands away. Not fast enough she didn't feel how he desired her. Or was it only the situation, the horrible vise he had her in?

The General crossed the short distance to the bed and sat on it. He began to unlace his boots.

"The rest, too," he said.

The dress fell away so easily, to puddle on the ground. She kicked it away and he watched the movement. His mouth twisted on some unnamed emotion.

The wine's path still felt warm down her throat and through her. She could feel, in her thighs and her breasts and all under her skin, the the drug in it beginning to work. Her breasts felt heavier, and an ache was growing between her legs. Even his filthy eyes raking over her couldn't kill it.

His boots were off, his socks. He was standing to remove his pants, and oh, yes, the wine was in him too. Mara was close enough to smell him, without remembering the walk. Now there was nothing between them but a scrap of cloth that had begun to cling to her mound.

He put his hands on her hips and looked up at her. The pose should have been supplicant, but he was shameless, and his eyes were devouring. A hint of sweat had begun to sheen his forehead.

"Your Majesty," he said. He slid one hand lower, turned his hand so his knuckles brushed the wet fabric between her legs, and Mara sucked in a breath like she'd been punched. The hatred and disgust lived in her, burned in her, choked every breath that came into her lungs, she wanted nothing more than to see him bleeding and broken over and over again--

But the bonding wine was whispering louder and louder. It wanted completion. It wanted to fit her hips against his, his mouth to her shoulder, her hands in his hair. She didn't know how to hold three suns inside her, how she could _survive_ like this, so she chose the only option she'd ever be allowed to have.

She pressed forward into his hand. He made a pleased noise that scraped against her like a file, but he pressed back, found the top of her cleft through soaking, clinging fabric and rubbed. Hard, graceless, nothing she liked, but she tilted her hips forward anyway, letting the pleasure-pain shock of it push the killing thoughts out of her brain.

Mara barely noticed she'd grabbed his shoulders until she was digging her nails into him. He hissed at that, and for retribution, stopped rubbing. She dug her nails in harder, because she would not whine for him like a dog. The General grabbed the waistband and _tore_.

The cold air between her legs was a shock, but she had no time to adjust, because he was reaching forward again, sliding through her slick folds. The tip of one finger found her entrance and some last remaining fragment of sanity made her flinch back.

" _No_ ," he snapped, and yanked her towards him.

They fell together, clumsy, desperate, to the bed, dragging each other up the sheets. Her skin hungered for the contagion of his, she couldn't have both hands off of him at once, and when his broad thigh slid between hers she clamped her legs closed and rutted, shameless, against the hard muscle there. He growled his approval at this and let his weight onto her, flat chest to her own softness, his straining cock against her hip. His mouth found the curve of her neck and bit down, and the pain wasn't enough to stop her. 

Distantly, some part of her was behind glass, and screaming. The bonding was growing vinelike through nerves, and it was louder. The weight of him--monster--city-burner--was a glory, and her hands tangled in his hair urged him on. Between her legs felt white-hot and swollen, and to not be filled was suddenly a despair.

"The flower," she managed to gasp. "The--"

He raised his head from her. Red on his mouth. For a moment his gaze looked animal, inhuman. 

Then he shook his head, hard, and slid off her. Mara stuffed her hand in her mouth to stop the whimpers from leaking out. The other hand dropped between her legs, frantic, insufficient, and then he was back, shoving her hand away.

The flowers dropped onto the pillow next to her head. The General jerked her legs apart, wide, wider. Mara scrabbled for the flowers and yanked the stem apart. 

In her fingers, the flowers twisted, leaned towards each other, mute longing. Mara whined at the feeling of the General settling between her legs. The smooth broad head of his cock slipping through her folds, hesitating, viciously, cruelly, horribly. Didn't he see how she needed to be filled, how empty--

The flower. She shoved one at him. She'd had no real thought how the flowers would be eaten, but in this terrible needing moment she just balled it up and forced it down. Her tongue recoiled from the sour, squeaky, nothing-flavor of it, but as she swallowed he breached her, and it was forgotten.

He half-collapsed on her, but she didn't mind, she didn't want him even so far away as politely supporting his weight. Only his hips moved, short, hard thrusts, that split her open and eased her ache all at once. Her legs wrapped around him, as if he could have gone anywhere. 

The flower was a mass in her throat. It didn't move, and the terrible need went on and on. She clawed at him, she rocked her hips up, she rubbed and rubbed and despite it all, despite the soaking pleasure that was near-pain, the climax never came. It kept ahead of her like a horizon and she sobbed with need for it. The General--

(Not his name. How silly. His name started with--with an R? Yes, that sounded right)

\--Wasn't stopping. And if her own sounds had taken on a note of tears his had taken on one of pain. Every thrust seemed to scatter her thoughts like stars but finally, finally, something broke through.

"The words," Mara gasped. "You have to-- _yes, please, yes_ \--we have  
to--"

He clutched her tighter. His mouth moved, wet, slack, against her neck.

" _Royan_ , you have to--"

He spoke, again, and this time she heard it. His half of the bond. She spat hers out, rapid, stumbling, lips barely able to move fast enough.

Her climax hit like a detonation. It spread up and through her with spikes of pleasure that cut, that seemed to sever something in her, hot and sharp and coming to lodge under her sternum. All her muscles locked with the sweetness of it. It was unworldly; it was nothing she could have ever even thought she could feel, this pain that soothed. She thought she heard the General shouting, somewhere. 

Then the flower shifted down. The poison spread out from under her breastbone, pushing out the pleasure, down her arms and legs in cold rushes. She didn't have time to scream before it climbed her spine and turned to shrapnel in her brain.

General Royan. No family name, his parents had joined some sort of cult that did away with them--he didn't eat very many foods, not very military-- _he killed her husband personally, personally, KNOWING she would see_ \--brother, dead, sister, addict, parents, dead, tea, four sugars, shoes, F4Standard width--

\--he STRANGLED him--

\--two suns reflecting in the lake, you are very small but you don't believe in lake monsters, you don't you DON'T--

Mara took it all. Every trivial and horrible and mundane and catastrophic bit of him. Laying under him she started to build a hoard, made up of every frayed wire and sore spot and string that tied _Royan_ to the past. 

When it was over, and a second heart beat in her chest, she smiled. She knew it for his smile. It pulled too wide, showed the place she'd chipped a tooth. She'd chipped it biting a cousin who tried to lock her in a storage chest--and now he would know that, too. 

She was bound to him, now, this creature she would destroy. And he was bound to her. And there was no place he could go beyond her reach.


End file.
